Martin Lewis: money saving expert reveals the cheapest dates for supermarket shoppers to buy Christmas food

Martin Lewis says Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Lidl are set to reduce the price of Christmas food
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Martin Lewis has revealed several dates when supermarkets are likely to slash the price of food ahead of Christmas.

The finance guru, 50, from Manchester, has been offering money saving advice on his BBC Sounds podcast amid the cost of living crisis.

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He told listeners that Aldi, Sainsbury’s and Lidl have released their loss leader dates, however supermarkets including Tesco, Morrison and Asda are yet to do so.

“The Christmas vegetable price war - it’s on,” Martin said.

He continued: "15p carrots, potatoes, sprouts and more. Lidl has got them from Thursday 15 December. Aldi from Sunday 18 December to Saturday 24 December.

"Sainsbury’s from Sunday the 18th of December.

"It’s at this point of the year these loss leaders are put on sale in the supermarkets to help people with their Christmas dinners to get you in store.

"Pretty much all of them do it, those are the ones that are announced so far but I expect many of the other supermarkets to pick them up soon too."

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The advice comes after Martin explained to podcast listeners how they can cut the cost of cooking during the Christmas period.

The money saving expert explained that the cost of heating foods depends on the number of items being cooked at a time and how long the foods are likely to take to fully cook.

Martin said: “The problem with the equation for heating equipment is for example an oven is going to be probably 1000W- 2000W.

“A microwave is 1000W for example. The difference between a microwave and an oven is a microwave, and I’m doing this from memory -  I’m not an electrical engineer so give me a bit of a caveat.

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“A microwave gives you consistent heat, whereas an oven is warming up to top temperature and then topping it up so it isn’t using the full wattage the whole time. They have a roughly equivalent wattage.

Martin Lewis has shared a handy cost-cutting tip for drying clothes in the winter (Photo: ITV)Martin Lewis has shared a handy cost-cutting tip for drying clothes in the winter (Photo: ITV)
Martin Lewis has shared a handy cost-cutting tip for drying clothes in the winter (Photo: ITV)

“But if you’re doing a jacket potato in a microwave for 10 minutes, it’s going to be far cheaper than doing a single jacket potato in an oven and keeping it on for an hour and a half.

“However if you were cooking a full roast dinner in the oven and the jacket potatoes were part of that, you’re cooking many of them, that is where it’s probably cheaper than putting five or six jacket potatoes in a microwave because for each additional object you put in a microwave, you’ll need to keep it on longer because a microwave just heats the individual object.”

He added: “The general equation is, find the wattage of an item. Remember a 1000W is a kilowatt, so work out how many kilowatts or what fraction of a kilowatt it’s using, then multiply that roughly by 34p per hour of use."